


A Battle for Everyone's Souls

by stxrdrifter



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Gen, I wrote this in like an hour and did no editing lmao, Spoilers for Persona 5 Royal, Spoilers for Persona 5 Strikers, Spoilers for Persona Q2, Velvet Room AU, hope it's good!, poichanchanDTIYS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:35:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29888799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stxrdrifter/pseuds/stxrdrifter
Summary: Elizabeth summons three persona users, their exemplary skills proving to be useful to her in a battle she has been waging for a long time.---Akira, Goro, and Sumire become Velvet Room Attendants
Comments: 7
Kudos: 48





	A Battle for Everyone's Souls

**Author's Note:**

> Written for poichanchan's DTIYS! Link to their original tweet [here!](https://twitter.com/Poichanchan/status/1358544948795224064)

Goro awoke slowly to a strange rhythm. He found himself in a sea of… something. It was dark, but it did not feel dark. The strange rhythm, a light clapping every few seconds, continued in the sea of darkness, and he opened his eye to find a door ahead of him. It was black, with blue light emanating from it.

‘Welp. Nowhere else to go, I suppose.’

He reached out and opened the door.

He didn’t know if dreamlike would be the best way to describe what he found. A large, open space, reminiscent of royal libraries often found in fantasy and medieval-type literature and films, laid itself out before him. A fireplace crackled to his left, the center of the wall he entered in on, and multiple couches, reading chairs, globes, and small end tables sat surrounding both it and the desk at its opposite. 

His gaze fell to the shelves. They were a dark oak brown, lined with books with titles he could not make out, even rising to a second story balcony. The ceiling was a clear glass, gazing out into a swirling cosmos of blue light.

What was most curious to Goro, though, were the two inhabitants of this library. One an elder man, long nosed and eyes bloodshot, sat at the oak desk opposite the fireplace. The other was a tall, slender boy, dressed in blue and black, tossing an apple up and down in the air as he laid lazily across the arms of his reading chair. The boy in particular caught Goro’s attention; his silk white hair was wild, unkempt, and reminded Goro of someone…

No. It  _ was  _ him.

“Akira?” Goro spoke for the first time.

Akira looked over at him. His eyes were a golden hue, soft yet piercing, looking to the source of the noise piercing the silence of the room with curious intent before shifting to something more… emotional.

“Goro?” He said back. The apple fell to the floor as he stood. He rushed to Goro, his blue coattails swishing loosely behind him, as he rushed over to pull the boy into a hug.

Goro hesitated, but hugged back. It was brief, lasting a mere moment, before the two separated.

“What is this—”

“Your eye… what happened?” Akira inquired. 

A gloved hand felt at Goro’s eye, meeting only leather instead of skin. Goro swatted the hand away and scoffed. “I lost it, obviously.”

And Akira chuckled. “How?”

Goro’s mind flicked back to the bowels of the Ark, facing off against his own doppelganger. “I think you know,” he answered softly.

Akira did know. He frowned melancholically. “I’m glad to see the real you, even if it’s… well…”

“... well?” Goro prodded.

“Igor?”

The man at the desk waved his hand, and a mirror appeared in front of Goro. He got the chance to take in his full appearance properly; A similar black shirt to Akira’s—though his was an evening shirt with a bowtie as opposed to Akira’s turtleneck—paired with a blue waistcoat, and tight black pants with blue accents as well. An emblem of a ‘V’ graced both his waistcoat and his eyepatch.

And of course, like Akira, his hair was a bright silver. 

In the instant it appeared, the mirror vanished once again. Goro’s gaze fell to the man at the desk. “Where is this?”

A chuckle fell from the man’s lips. “We are awaiting one final guest. It would be rude of me to introduce myself before everyone else arrived, no?” His voice sounded bright in stark contrast to the very dark demeanor the man upheld. 

Akira chuckled as well. “God, he always has to be cryptic, doesn’t he?”

Goro met his chuckle with a scowl. “I don’t know who  _ he  _ is!” 

The pair inevitably fell into laughter. Something about Akira relaxed him, even if the situation he was in was so utterly bizarre, that he could not possibly comprehend it.

Just as Goro sat down in one of the couches, the door opened once again and in came a girl in similar attire to himself. A black turtleneck underneath an open blazer, paired with a blue skirt running from her hips to her thighs, tights, and… ballet shoes? Her similarly silver hair was tied up in a ponytail, a hat neatly adorning her crown, and she held a large tome tightly to her chest. 

“Um…” the girl spoke. Her voice was familiar to Goro, but Akira knew who it was immediately.

“Sumire?” He asked. 

“Y-yeah… what is this place?” Sumire asked in return. “A-a-and why do you look like that?”

Akira snickered. “You should see yourself. Igor? If you’d do the honours?”

The man, apparently named Igor, sighed and waved a hand. A mirror appeared in front of Sumire, allowing her to get a closer look at herself, before it vanished. “Woah.”

“Honestly, I don’t think either of us know why we’re here,” Goro explained. “Let alone why we’re wearing these ridiculous getups.” 

Akira gave Goro a piercing glare. “Come on, you love it. It looks snazzy as hell!”

The former detective sighed. “Fine. I admit… it’s classy.”

Sumire giggled. “It does look nice, Akechi-senpai. Same to you, Kurusu-senpai.” Her eye caught the man at the desk, his piercing glare into space, and she quickly offered a curt bow. “A-apologies for not introducing myself! My name is Sumire Yoshizawa.”

“Yes,” the man spoke, his tone completely unreadable. “Now, if you would please take a seat. I believe we have some explaining to do.”

‘We?’ Goro and Sumire both pondered. The two took a seat on either side of Akira, looking to the man at the desk with intent curiosity.

“My name is Igor,” he announced, “and welcome to the Velvet Room. This is a place between dream and reality, mind and matter.” 

Akira giggled to himself. Goro shot him a dirty look. “What?”

Igor, still completely unreadable, kept speaking. “I admit, I was not the one to call you here. However, the one who was is not available at the moment, so I shall explain.

“You are here at the behest of one of my attendants, Elizabeth. You three showed incredible performance as persona users, most notably in your battle for reality against the man known as Takuto Maruki. Thus, Elizabeth deemed you a necessary asset to her quest, and you were brought here.”

“Her quest?” Akira asked, voicing at least one of the many questions that the trio had. “What quest?”

Before Igor could answer, the door behind him opened, and in stepped two women; one in a simple tank top dress, blue gloves, a silver bob and hat, standing just a few inches shorter than Goro himself, and the other much shorter, with a more conservative longer sleeved dress, and a blue headband adorned with butterfly wings behind her ears. 

“Ah, I see she’s arrived. Allow me to introduce you to two of my attendants: Elizabeth, and Lavenza.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Elizabeth said in a voice that Sumire did not expect her to have.

“Welcome back, Trickster,” Lavenza followed, addressing Akira with a much softer voice.

Sumire looked at Akira with oblique confusion. “Welcome back?”

Akira waved a hand. “It’s a long story. Elizabeth,” he addressed the sleeveless attendant, seemingly uncaring for whatever was going on. “Why were we called here? And why are we dressed as attendants?”

Elizabeth smiled. “I have summoned you here to aid us in a fight we have been seeking answers for for many years. I would like you to kill Nyx.”

Goro cocked his head to the side. “Nyx? As in the greek goddess of night?”

“To humans, that may be what she was once called,” Lavenza answered, “but she is a very real entity that seeks the destruction of humanity.”

“What’s stopping her?” Akira asked. 

Elizabeth answered, “A seal, formed from the soul of a young boy.

“I apologize. This must all be very confusing, but it is about to become even moreso. Nyx is a primordial being, tasked with the destruction of humanity, but Nyx cannot be brought to earth alone. She must be met by Erebus, a foul demon born of the dread of humanity.”

“Like Morgana?” Akira asked once again. “Except… I guess the opposite?”

Lavenza shook her head. “That is an understandable comparison, however, Erebus is different. It dwells in the sea of souls, forever seeking to break free from its seal, only contained by that boy. It will be constantly reborn, so long as humanity desires the coming of Nyx.”

“Why would humanity want to die?” Sumire shouted. Her voice was wrought with pain, something clearly hitting very close to home. “I admit, there are some people that may desire death… I was one of them, for a time… but all of humanity cannot possibly be like that!”

Her chest heaved as she finished shouting. Akira placed a hand on her shoulder, an attempt to help her calm herself. “I think I can answer that one.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Go ahead.”

“More than once, we’ve… I’ve fought gods. Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge, set on imprisoning humanity, claiming imprisonment is its ‘one true desire’. I had the Phantom Thieves to back me up, thankfully, but they still weren’t easy fights.” He let out a chuckle. “I guess that goes to show how much distortion is in the hearts of humanity, huh?”

“I believe you are getting off track, Trickster,” Lavenza interjected.

“Right, sorry.” Akira continued, “Yaldabaoth and the Demiurge were fueled by corrupt desires. Even just the slightest spark of desire for imprisonment from every person on earth was enough to make them strong. The same happened with Maruki; humanity desired the Phantom Thieves’ aid, but because we, even a little bit, desired his aid, all that power fell to him.”

Elizabeth nodded. “This is not to mention your endeavors against Enlil with the boy on your left.”

Goro raised an eyebrow. “Enlil?” 

Elizabeth covered her mouth with a gloved hand. “It would appear you do not recall. I am—” she looked between Lavenza and Igor urgently “—unsure if this is information I should be giving you. Master?”

Igor, like he’d done thrice since Akira’s arrival, waved a hand. Suddenly, Akira and Goro both put hands to their heads, grunting in pain as memories were re-inserted directly into their cortexes. Sumire looked on with disdain, but confusion bubbled underneath. “Was… did I not fight Enlil?”

“It would appear,” Goro grunted as he sat back up, “that you did not. It was only myself and Kurusu, as well as many other faces I don’t entirely recognize.”

“You don’t recognize Naoto Shirogane?” Akira blurted out.

“ _ We were with Naoto Shirogane?! _ ” Goro blurted back.

Lavenza shook her head, suppressing a laugh. “It would appear the memories are not all returning at once, but so long as you recall your battle against Enlil, that is what matters.”

Lavenza and Elizabeth continued to explain what was being asked of the trio; they were to fight and destroy both Erebus and Nyx, embodiments of humanity’s desires for death, alongside the assistance of other Velvet Room Attendants. 

“I still don’t understand one thing,” Sumire muttered. “Why are we… you know… in these outfits?”

“Due to the nature of this battle, we have granted you abilities similar to our own; we have made you Velvet Room Attendants, for the time you are here,” Elizabeth answered. “You will not be able to summon your personas as you once did. However, in exchange, you are granted resilience befitting of immortals. This battle will not be easy, but to be gifted with these powers will give you great strength in the challenges ahead.”

“This is not to say you will not be able to summon personas entirely,” Lavenza added. She extended a hand towards Sumire, addressing the tome in her arms. Sumire nervously passed along the book, and Lavenza opened it on the desk in front of them. She drew a card, held it in her hand for a moment, and closed her eyes.

She whispered, “Orpheus.”

And in an instant, the card shattered like glass, and a Persona appeared behind her. It was robot-like, wielding a lute in its arms. A moment later, it faded away, and the card returned to the book.

“You in particular, Miss Yoshizawa, have been granted this tome in order to summon personas from the sea of souls contained within.” Lavenza handed the book back to Sumire. “Your partners will also be able to summon their old personas, but they must first be granted the cards from yourself.”

Sumire’s face was wrought with confusion. “I have… no idea what is going on right now.”

Igor chuckled. “In due time, you will come to understand. Time is not of the essence here.” 

He stood from his desk. “I think now is the time to take a break. You’ve just been given a lot of information you will need to comprehend, and it would be best to think that over on your own, if you so wish.” He waved his hand and the door behind him opened. “Through this way, you will find personal quarters, where you may spend your time.”

“I thought Velvet Room dwellers didn’t need personal quarters?” Akira asked.

“That is correct,” Elizabeth answered, “However, you are far more human than we, so we shall accommodate your needs for private spaces to rest and relax.”

The trio began to stand and join Lavenza in a short tour, but before they could go anywhere, Elizabeth stopped them one final time. 

“Before you go, I have one final gift for you.”

She waved an arm, and three blades sheathed in blue steel appeared in the air. One a rapier with a blue ribbon around the hilt, one a serrated blade with a striped guard, and the third a simple shortsword with a hilt that looked like—

“Arsene?” Akira mumbled, reading the inscription at the base of the blade. Sumire and Goro both drew their blades, their inscriptions reading “Cindrillon” and “Loki” respectfully.

“The powers of your personas have been refined into these blades for you. Utilizing a weapon you are skilled with is a must in this battle. Take good care of them,” Elizabeth explained. 

Akira, along with Goro and Sumire, sheathed his weapon. “We will. Thank you, Elizabeth.”

The woman smiled. “Don’t thank me yet. We have much work to do.”

**Author's Note:**

> (Honestly, I'm tempted to turn this into a three-shot, but right now I'm going to stick with a oneshot so as to not submit unfinished work.)


End file.
